Merged
by Cha-Cha-Cheesecake
Summary: When Al's body's rejecting his soul, Ed comes up with a solution to solve it: Forbidden Alchemy! And now they're literally one and the same, where will they go? Setting: AU following the plot of FMA: Brotherhood.


**This is my first FMA fanfic, so please feel free to leave any constructive criticism (although flames I will only roast marshmallows on).**

**I got inspiration upon having a dream about two characters being merged. Somehow I think it fits.**

**Merged**

"Are you sure that this is going to work, brother?" Alphonse Elric said nervously, feeling sick as another wave of dizziness washed over him.

"Well, you're going to be drawn back to your body if you stay in that suit of armour any longer, as the blood seal's going to fade soon. We need to find a new body. Or get your old one back."

"But… when you said that… You're not going to…?"

"I'm sorry, Al," Edward Elric said softly, turning away from him. "But I got you into this mess. And I'm certainly going to dig you out of it."

"Brother, I don't want that! It might not even work!" cried Al, grabbing his brother by the arm. "Then, you will…"

"Alphonse." Al stopped and stared at his brother. "I want you to live on, okay? It was my own selfishness that lost you your body, so I'm going to help you out here."

"No! I don't want that!" Al shouted. "I'd rather die if it meant killing you! I don't want you to die!"

"I'd rather you lived than me," he said, clapping his hands together. Al began to scream.

"NO BROTHER, PLEASE DON'T DO IT! I'M BEGGING YOU; I JUST WANT YOU TO BE OKAY!"

_Fzzzzak!_

Al could barely breathe. All he could see was white. Then, silence. Silence. Strong, sweet silence. But he didn't even care how blissful it was to for once, hear absolutely nothing. Because of Ed. Ed…

_My brother! Brother! I need to escape, _screamed Al into the silence, but no sound came from him. Just silence.

Now the silence was so deafening it was agony. Al was struggling to escape, but when he tried to move it was impossible. It was like he was bound to something tight. Something unbreakable.

Riza Hawkeye's eyes snapped open. All she could hear was silence. Then, a scream. So faint she could barely hear it. But the voice was unmistakeable.

She silently climbed out of bed padded across the corridor to the Elric Brothers' room. Empty, empty, all empty!

She ran out of the room and banged on the door of Roy Mustang's room.

"Colonel, we have a situation," Riza cried. "The Elric Brothers have disappeared, and I think they've been performing more forbidden alchemy!"

Moments later, Roy stumbled out of his room, fully clothed in his military uniform.

"Oh my God," he whispered, face grey. "They asked to borrow some ingredients from Laboratory 2 today… I think they might've… Oh my God. I think they might have tried Human Transmutation to bring back Alphonse's body!"

When they arrived at the scene, Riza gagged. Everywhere she looked was a sea of blood. And then…

"Oh my…!" she fell on her knees, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.

A suit of armour, lifeless and still. Then Ed, glaring at the two Dogs of The Military. His right arm, though…

It was flesh. But it wasn't his own. And then as her gaze moved up his body, she gasped.

"Alphonse, your head…" Al's head was stuck in Ed's shoulder. He wasn't awake.

"This… this isn't…" Ed stammered, averting his gaze. Roy grabbed him and held him up by the collar of his shirt.

"What the hell did you do?" Roy shouted, feeling frightened behind his mask of anger.

"This was… This… This was for the best!" Ed snapped, finding his voice once more.

"How the hell was this for the best?" screamed Roy. "You two could've died! Didn't you learn the first time you did something as stupid as this?"

"Brother…" Al began to slowly come around. He lifted a hand to wipe his brow, and…

He stared. And stared. And stared.

"Brother… what… is this…?" he turned his head and began to scream.

"BROTHER! What the hell is happening? Did you… Oh god…" Ed hit him on the head.

"Come to your senses, Al! It's okay. We'll get out of this, I promise…"

"That's a lie!" cried Al. "You can't think that we'll ever get our bodies back if we're like this!"

"Al, stop thinking negatively! We can do this, okay? It'll be hard, but we can, I swear!"

Al looked disbelieving, and stared at his arm, perplexed.

"What will you do, then?" Riza asked, after a long silence.

"What do you mean?" Ed asked, shivering in the tension of the room.

"I mean, where will you go now? And what will you do? Are you going to remain a State Alchemist?"

"Of course," snapped Ed, anger rising in his throat. "Now we have even more reasons to go searching for our bodies! If we restore Al's, then… We might both be okay!"

"But what about your friends back in Resembool? And your home there? You can't go back there when you look like that!" Roy shouted, his steely glare never leaving Ed's.

"I don't know!" Ed said, his voice shaking with locked emotion. "But… But…"

"We'll continue our research," came a stronger-sounding voice. Everyone turned to face Alphonse Elric. "To get our bodies back, our_ real_ bodies… I don't even care how strange we look, or how long it takes. So please… just let us go."

Edward had tears falling from his bronze eyes as Al said this. Al wiped a tear from the corner of Ed's eye.

"Don't cry, Brother," Al said calmly, "Because you're known for your careless mistakes, am I right? It's okay."

"But Al… now you look like this! How can this ever be okay?"

"Well, sure, we look a bit weird… but, at least I can sleep! And I can eat! That's something I've wanted to do for a long time, Brother! So, as long as I can, I'm happy. It would be nice to have my own body back one day, but for now… oh well!"

"But Al… don't even kid yourself. I know we're a mess now. We're really falling apart at the seams this time, aren't we?"

"We still have each other, though. It's all we've always had. We've been on our own for a while now. This is just another obstacle we'll have to get through." Al sighed.

"We're home!" Ed and Al called, pushing open the door of the Rockbell's house. Almost as soon as they entered the house they were greeted by the sounds of thundering footsteps.

"Finally! Did you guys even think to call, once-" Winry stopped blabbing and stared. Ed was wearing his coat, hiding Al away from her eyes.

"Um… Ed… where's Al? I was sure I heard his voice…" Ed took off his coat, revealing Al's head. Winry's face went from puzzled to confused, to really pale. When she spoke, her voice was shaking.

"Al," she whispered, "what… is going on…?"

"I-it's just that… well… do you remember in Briggs, when my armour was rejecting my soul? Well, Brother thought that I might disappear, so I… I just… I tried to talk him out of it, but we ended up… merging."

"You… IDIOTS!" Almost at once a wrench hit Ed's forehead.

"Ouch! Are you trying to kill me, Winry?" he shouted, an egg-shaped lump on his head.

"What did you think would happen if you didn't make it out alive, huh? You were just going to die without even talking to us once? And that's another thing! All this time, you never talk to us or phone us. You never trust us enough to tell us what's going on! And now… and now you…" A tear ran down her cheek.

"Hey, Winry… don't cry… d-don't… cry!" Ed began. She shook her head.

"Don't, Ed. Why didn't you listen to Al? If he didn't want to be merged with you, you shouldn't have done it!" She glared at them furiously. "You… You…! Now where am I going to get money! Most of the money we get comes from repairing your automail!"

She clenched her fists and stormed out of the room, a look of absolute fury on her face.

"Brother… I think we made things much worse for ourselves by coming home," Al said, after a long silence. He sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry, Al, I really am. I didn't think that after all that had happened, it would come to this…"

"Don't blame yourself, Brother," Al said softly. "We're both going through this."

"Hello, boys. Winry seemed angry," Pinako said, entering through the doorway Winry had stormed out of just moments before. She stopped and stared.

"Granny, I-" Al began.

"You two look different," she commented. Ed gawped at her.

"That's it. Different?" Ed cried. She nodded.

"Well, what do you want me to say?" she asked. "You two obviously brought it on yourselves, so there's no point wasting energy freaking out. Besides," she smiled wanly. "You're still the same Ed and Al I've known since you were kids."

"Y-You mean you… you don't hate us? For what happened?" Al asked.

"Why should I? You kids will work something out. You might need to apologise to Winry, though."

"Th-Thank you, Granny," Al said, eyes filling up with tears. "Thank you for not hating us."

Ed just nodded, and shivered. He wanted to slip on his coat again, but he knew Al wanted to get a word in while talking to Winry.

"Thanks. We'll go apologise now," he said, leaving the room. Al rubbed his eyes.

"We'll be okay, Ed. I'm sure Winry will forgive us…"

"I hope so," Ed sighed. "Although we can't be sure. She looked pretty steamed."

They found Winry sitting outside on the steps, staring at her knees. She looked more sad than angry now.

"Winry, we're so-"

"I know you are, Ed. And Al. But it doesn't change a thing. You're still… like this."

"We know!" Ed said. "We know we must look a mess to everyone who looks our way. But we're alive, aren't we? Isn't that all that counts?"

"If you say that you need to look after yourself a bit more!" she snapped. "I just… I don't want to lose you guys. You two are our friends and family. You know that, right?"

"We do," Al said. "That's why we came home to see you, Winry."

**So, there it is. I usually write more, but as I wrote this on my school account and my teacher's getting cheesed off, I sadly had to rush it to end it (Hotmail is filtered on here so I can't access it to send it to my email account). Still, please review it! :D**


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